Personal Reflection on the Flat Classroom Project

[katev_TIGS]

The Flat Classroom has been an interesting two month journey of learning, developing acquired skills and attributes and collaboration between students alike. The students of The Illawarra Grammar School (TIGS) IPT class were given a task were the task to create informative pieces of writing on a subject set depending on what team the student was placed in and then later on make a multi-media artifact that represents the information previously researched. I was placed in the Web 2.0 group, composed of students from different schools around the world. The whole process started off in class we were given the project and asked to make an introduction on our Flat Classroom Ning’s, after we created them. There we introduced ourselves, our school and what we were looking forward to in our project. We then moved on to the Flat Classroom wiki. All the IPT class member were assigned to a team to work with, whether it be “Connecting the World Online”, “Mobile and Ubiquitous”, etc. I was placed in the Web 2.0 group under Innovation, Invention and Prediction.

Each group had a wiki dedicated to the subject we were given, because mine was Web 2.0, I worked on that wiki and input my ideas and research information into it, in education and wrote the beginning of the topics background info. It was a good learning process of updating and creating written pieces on the net. Most of my information I got from various suggested sources listed on the bookmarks at the bottom of the page. I also had obtained information from YouTube videos on the topic and got inspiration on my video from other videos on the net. At times it was difficult finding information on web 2.0 and education and was quite meticulous putting all the researched information together in the education section. What was asked of me on the wiki, after looking over the question, I could have answered it differently relating more to the topic that I’m focusing on, which was innovation, invention and prediction. This is all a learning process and where I didn’t answer correctly I will make sure to change how I look at a question and respond to it the next time.

The discussion tab on the wiki was used to notify and inform other students collaborating on the web. I had used it once to inform the others that I had edited the background information of web 2.0 and I had left it open for other students to edit, manipulate and input their own ideas and information. The wiki tab wasn’t used so much by the other students and I. With the availability of the Ning and its chat service, going all the way to the wiki site to talk to other students was quite inconvenient and bothersome and the convenience of the chat room accessible on the Ning seems like the better option and alternative to the wiki tab, reason behind why perhaps some of the other students didn’t utilize this option.

We had the opportunity to use a program called Ning, which is an interactive way to communicate information and contacting other people. On the Ning I had been able to connect two of my other team members and was able to send information and comment other users. I had posted my videos and outsource request videos on the Ning and my first introductory passage. It was helpful to use this web source as a means to contact others and made it possible through this site with the availability of a pop-up chat room service and comment section in a personal profile. It was a pretty easy to understand site and resembles some popular sites on the web that teenagers these day utilize as a social medium, these such as Facebook, MySpace and so on. This site is relatable as communication was open and possible at all times from where ever you are, either at home or school. So this made it possible to contact any of the member of you group where ever you need to when ever you need to.

Everyone had to make a multi-media artifact, which is a video on the chosen to topic you were placed in. My topic was Web 2.0 and education. I gather my information from a range of sources that were relevant to my topic and made a story plot on word, placing in my information and read editing continuously to make it a simplified story line for my video narration. We were also given story board pages making the direction or outline for a video and how we picture our video to be like. I had draw up sketches prior to some of my story boarding as I had a basic idea at the time I drew it up of Web 2.0 and some features related to it. Some problems that came up while I was making and sending videos, was for my outsource request I actually had no one reply to my message, but I had made videos in the end, for my video, so that turned out ok. Another problem I encountered was when I made my video, some of the videos I took had been squished in half once, which I can’t figure out the reason as to why it happened but was resolved with using some of the spaces created from the video being squish for text. It was a valuable learning process, nevertheless. I had learnt the process of developing a video and placing audio in a video alongside a narration. Next time when I do make a video, I will probably make it a bit differently, like instead of it being informative but kind of humorous like some of the other videos I had the chance of viewing or centered more on interviews of people around me. Another change I would make to my video would be that I would focus more on what would happen in the future for Web 2.0 rather than background information. After the videos were sent in some people had given feedback on the videos we made. It was very encouraging hearing other people’s opinions on the video had created and my vision had been understood and liked. Our class was also encouraged by our teacher to comment positively on other peoples videos. I had gone around and viewed various people’s creations and overall the videos were very well done and the next time I’ll use their creations as either a way for creative ideas or inspiration for another video.

The Flat classroom project has been an interesting process, full of learning, collaboration and understanding. I’ve learnt new skills and learnt about topics I previously had no idea on. Overall it’s been an enjoyable and education experience. Thank you.